Recent image pickup apparatuses, such as a video camera, not only take and record motion images pursuant to the television standard but also take and record still images using pixels more than those for the television standard. In addition, as the number of pixels in the image sensor increases, it is necessary in the motion image shooting and recording to read out a two-dimensional image from the image sensor at least at a field period in accordance with the television standard. Therefore, in the motion image shooting and recording of the motion images, the number of readout pixels from the image sensor is reduced by cutting reading, thinning reading, and pixel adding reading, and the number of reading channels or the reading velocity is increased. However, the increased number of reading channels or a higher reading velocity will increase the cost and the consumption power, and thus a proposal to reduce the number of pixels to be read out of the image sensor is effective in the motion image shooting. Some video camera bodies may have a switch that switches between a motion image shooting mode and a still image shooting mode, a motion image shooting trigger, and a still image shooting trigger.
On the other hand, in order to keep the right timing to take a good image through simplified operations, it is proposed to eliminate switching between the motion image shooting mode and the still image shooting mode and to provide the still image shooting during the motion image shooting. See, for example, PLT1. PLT1 takes and records still images at a field timing that continues to a field timing used to generate a motion image, and supplements the field period in which the motion image is absent, by converting the still image into the motion image.
However, PLT1 poses a problem of an unnatural motion of a motion image when an absent motion image is format-converted from a still image during the still image shooting while the object is moving.